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In pledging to rebuild an even better New Orleans on Thursday night, President Bush confused what is admirable in an individual with what is responsible for the leader of a national government.

In his national address, Bush cited a New Orleans resident who, when asked whether he was going to relocate, said: "Naw, I will rebuild, but I will build higher."

We can all admire, and be inspired by, such determination not to give in to adversity. G-d bless him and all those who, through individual initiative and will, want to recreate and even improve on what they had, where they had it, before Katrina swept it away.

But Bush is not pledging his own resources to rebuild a better New Orleans. He's pledging the resources of the national government, and that's another matter.

While purebred libertarians may cavil, most Americans would agree that the national government should assume responsibility for helping the Katrina evacuees get back on their feet.

To restart their lives, what the evacuees need most of all is money. Giving all evacuee families the median American family income for a year would cost in the range of $10 billion to $20 billion. The federal government could also waive the Medicaid eligibility requirements and pick up the full cost of covering evacuee families for a year.

So, at a cost that would be a fraction of the numbers being batted around in Washington, evacuees could be given a full year's head start on a new life with all the basics  shelter, food, clothing and health care  covered and a standard of living equal to or better than that of the average American. And that's excluding any resources provided by insurance, the claim losses for which are being estimated at around $60 billion.

As a practical matter, the federal government also needs to take responsibility for the hurricane cleanup and ensuring that there are no lingering health hazards before rehabitation.

But that's pretty much where the responsibility of the federal government should end. The extent to which, and how, New Orleans is rebuilt and reinhabited should be driven by private decisions and investments and by state and local governments.

Bush, however, believes that the federal government should not only pick up most of the cost of reconstruction but drive private capital there as well. He proposes that businesses in the affected region get tax breaks and financing not available to businesses elsewhere.

The effect of this will be to redirect private capital that otherwise would be deployed in other locations. But why should the federal government prefer economic activity in this region to economic activity elsewhere, particularly in places where it might not be as much at risk of destruction from a natural disaster?

It's also clear that Bush wants to turn reconstruction into a social welfare project of sorts. He said a rebuilt New Orleans should have more minority-owned businesses and more owner-occupied housing rather than rentals.

The implication was that it would be the federal government's responsibility to make it so. Indeed, he proposed special financing for minority businesses and free land for owner-occupied, low-income housing.

Now, urban poverty is a big national problem. But it was not caused by Katrina, nor is it limited to areas that Katrina devastated.

Obviously it makes no sense to rebuild New Orleans and leave it vulnerable to being washed away again. Bush, however, was vague about whose responsibility that would be, suggesting that it would be shared between state and local officials and the federal government. But it was just that sort of divided responsibility that left New Orleans excessively exposed this time.

The claim is made that Bush is being driven by politics, needing to show command in the aftermath of an initial response to Katrina by the federal government that is widely regarded as sluggish and inadequate. I don't know whether it's that or Bush's anthropomorphic view of government as possessing, and needing to exhibit, human virtues.

Regardless, he's leading the national government in the wrong direction. The focus should be on helping people and cleaning up the mess. The rebirth and renewal of New Orleans and the more broadly affected Gulf region should be left to the organic processes of a free people.

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